the oral surgeon gave fentanyl on the day of my surgery. i remember my mother via patch on the forearm or hip took that too. every six hours i had to flush the used patch down the toilet, or maybe i did and shouldn't have. at the hairdresser i always tell them my name is tiffany. tiffany—well, i— am from boca raton. my parents? they spend their seasons perpetually warm, blanketed in memory. my therapist told me to imagine grief as a stone; i was nineteen when she described the stone to me. she said the stone is half-submerged in water. the waves slap against rock, making perpetual time. i imagine the stone beneath a fake water fall, plastic used to add empty sound to a waiting room. over centuries water will smooth the rock face until it is, to the touch, newborn skin. i carry that rock in my chest and occasionally a black, unkempt sadness rises in me. bile accelerates the process of velveting my grief. i feel wind cold through tunnel, dark ride home in that never-ending taxi. i carry furniture up to the third floor. i see the stray dog catch the taste of trash in his wet mouth. it’s the same sadness of seeing children bobsledding with fathers, photo albums of stories i’ve heard but don’t remember. liking horses and becoming the child who likes horses. years have passed since she was one hundred then sixty-six pounds. daily that winter i kissed her forehead and was so aware of bone.